ABSTRACT
The second afternoon of the three-day “Fear of the Unknown” conference was an interactive panel debate with our three keynote speakers, Professor Hein, Dr. Meszaros and Dr. McManus. As chair, I also invited three senior members of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) staff to join the panel: a curator, a project manager and an educator. The six panel members were asked, in advance, to consider the following proposition:
If we think of language as having many forms, including textual, visual and experiential, it can be argued that it is central to the role of learning through interpretation in museums. Yet, the philosopher, Hans George Gadamer, who wrote extensively about museum interpretation within the framework of philosophical hermeneutics questioned, “is language a bridge or a barrier?” ( Gadamer, 2004). Given this, please consider “How can we define the role of language in museum interpretation?”
